Who let the dogs out?

Actually, the neighbor kid took the dog out last night. So, while I let her out of the door, he let her out of the building.

I was all ready to write something here about how thoughtful I've been able to be in the last week or so with A. How I am trying to slow down, take more time with her, and we are getting along better. I play more and rush less. And it helps.

And I realize how much her world is filled with rules and "don't" and "no, not yet" and "okay, but only one before dinner"....which is why it hasn't phased me as much that she is doing a lot of ordering us around lately. "No, Mama, you no brush teeth in my bathroom!" and "No Papa, you took too much of my bread" (actually that one sounded more like "RRRRARGHHH! Crash! Kick! Cry! Hit!", but it meant the same in toddler talk). So even if the behavior is more extreme, I get it.

And then the babysitter came in with A yesterday afternoon from school pickup and almost quit. Now, our babysitter is one of the cornerstones of our life working here. If this woman is not longer around for babysitting, we'd best just move back to the US. Forget my job, not feeling integrated in the community, etc., etc. This babysitter and the daycare teachers are the lynchpin.

Turns out, A is finally releasing some of this new found frustration on the babysitter, too. To me, it just means she is part of our family in A's eyes. But it was the first time she wasn't sure what to think of A's behavior at pick up. And, although beloved, our daycare teachers don't usually see kids doing much tantrumming. (One "m"? Two? Hmmm). Kids all get dressed by themselves by age 2, they get diapers off and underpants on after naps, by themselves, calmly, etc. If you are looking for empathy about how hard it is getting a kid dressed in the morning, it isn't going to come from daycare stories. And if you take a kid's daycare behavior as something to compare your home life to, you're in for a world of doubt, hurt, anger and resentment. Our babysitter had just not encountered that before, poor woman. A has been easily charmed by her calm, her patience, and all of her loving energy to play for hours, until now. And for just a second, after the fear of her actually quitting subsided by me saying a million and one things about how this happens to us all the time at daycare pick-up, I felt a little pang of....what?

It was good. It wasn't, perhaps, mature of me, but it was the feeling that the super-ninja-childcarer in our midst was also thrown for a loop by that behavior, and that, for once, I was the one doing the comforting of the adult confused by the child's behavior. I was old hat at not taking it personally. At least not the getting dressed at daycare part. Let's be honest, I find more than enough other things to take personally that aren't personal.

Anyway, I felt...skilled. Experienced. More like a rock than a leaf blowing on choppy seas. And it felt good.

And dinner went well, with just me and A. And we were getting ready for bed and...BLAMMO! Not so fast, like-a-rock-mama. Screaming, hitting fit over too much toothpaste. We both did some screaming (I'll give myself a bonus that actually I was just loud and not screaming or crying), and I did no hitting. I did a lot of getting hit and then leaving the room. And breathing. And just trying to figure out how to land this flight in the middle of a hurricane.

I finally sat in the hallway near where I put A to sit. She ran away to her room. I sat some more. She finally came out of her room and into my arms. We sat quiet for a bit. I could see this as one of our rockier moments in the last week for the raised voices and hands, but I choose to see it as an okay moment. That we ended connecting again. I take it as a win-win.

And as for the middle-of-the-night screaming when asked to move over for mama to get into bed, and screaming louder when mama say she's going back to her own room? Well, perhaps we are just going to settle our boundary disputes a little more loudly than in other families. And that can be okay, too. It is about working with what you've got - if I get upset more quickly, I may not always be the calm parent. But I, my friends, am the ninja of "I'm sorry." I can say it soon after an outburst, I can say it sincerely, and I can say it first. That is one of the biggest gifts my own mother (with a temper of her own) gave me. It doesn't mean I don't also need to work on the temper itself, but it is a hell of a start.